


No Rest for the Monochrome

by starrelia



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Abuse, Cisgender, Emotional Abuse, Emotional Manipulation, Implied Murder, Isolation, M/M, Self-Harm, self-hate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-26 12:04:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7573375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starrelia/pseuds/starrelia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So this is Rhys's life now- a battery for Jack to use, abuse. A murderer. A dead man- but being dead is preferable to being locked up in a room, finishing up something that someone else started; someone that Rhys doesn't even know, replacing their place being hooked up to machines and eridium injectors.</p><p>And so this is his life now. A battery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Rest for the Monochrome

When Rhys looks at his own hands and considers all that he has done, he supposes that being hooked up to a machine and being treated like some sort of _battery_ is what he deserves. His veins seem to practically bulge against his thin skin, fingers trembling. The new prosthetic arm looks so large in comparison to his own fleshy arm, and Rhys wraps them both around himself when more eridium is pumped through his veins.

He chokes and gags on his own tongue, tears streaming down his cheeks, his face, and Rhys shudders as he is bathed in the eerie glow of the monitors. Everything around him hums and buzzes of technology that he remembers finding comfort in, once upon a time, but now he sees only his torment and newfound dependency. His mouth feels full of saliva, body trembling far too much from the eridium that he has yet to grow accustomed to, and his tattoos glow an unnerving, dark blue.

When will Jack let him go? He sniffles and tries not to vomit again—he hasn’t eaten anything in _days,_ doesn’t need to because the eridium sustains him—and he sobs disgustingly, pathetically, in the empty blackness of his new room. It feels that there is less and less blood in his veins, flowing through, and if his heart hasn’t pumped out eridium yet then Rhys isn’t sure what to make of himself anymore.

A siren, pitiful and shaking on his knees, saliva dripping out of his now open mouth as his body heaves with the restraint to not vomit. If he pukes up again, Jack will learn about it and he’ll be shocked again; if he’s lucky, that is. His skin prickles as he remembers the time Jack has had him open on an operating table, eridium being injected into his organs and the pain _beyond_ everything that Rhys has ever imagined.

There is no hope for him ever escaping, not with his friends’ blood on his hands – enslaved by the damned collar on his neck, having sunk in and clamping down so tight on his throat that he is surprised his neck hasn’t _snapped_ yet.

He wants to get out. But there’s nothing left outside for him; not when he has been declared officially dead, no longer existing in Hyperion’s ranks and his life stripped from him. He’s a lamb to the slaughter, but instead of actually putting him out of his misery they keep him alive, dragging out his life, and refusing to let him die until he has picked up what Angel has left behind.

This is his life now.

A murderer.

A dead man.

A living battery.

* * *

Jack visits him, not often enough but _enough_ to keep Rhys from going mad with the loneliness. He comes to him, looking distracted even if Rhys thinks that Jack is just _faking_ it. He kneels before Rhys’s practically bare form, places his hands on his tattoos and on his concaved stomach, and he grins with perfect, pearly whites. “Hey there, champ,” Jack says as he strokes over his stomach, his tattoos. “You doin’ pretty well there, huh?”

Rhys glares at him miserably. “Now now Rhysie, don’t give me that look.” He licks his lower lip, and Rhys wonders what it feels like. He has always kissed Jack without the mask—is it real? If so, how? How does it actually work?

He has been in the dark for so long that even with Jack’s visits he has to busy himself with something as simple as _how does the mask work?_ Perhaps it isn’t even real. Perhaps this isn’t real. All this is a dream—and Angel’s job is never incomplete and his friends are alive.

But Rhys only has to breathe and turn away to cough up eridium mixed in with phlegm, his mouth falling openly at the burning sensation that crawls up his throat. “I’m sorry,” Rhys chokes out and shivers before Jack, waiting for some sort of punishment. “Sorry—sorry Jack—Jack sir. Didn’t mean to waste.” He forces out through grit teeth and pain, and Jack grabs his arm. He yanks him, hard, and makes Rhys look up at his smiling face.

“There there, kiddo. That eridium’s takin’ a loooot outta ya, isn’t it?” he strokes Rhys’s cheek and frowns at the drool escaping him and he immediately closes his mouth at Jack’s displeasure. He fumbles around ,trying to find something around him to wipe his face clean with and Jack gives him a small towel – does Jack expect this? – and he takes it gratefully.

“Don’t worry about it. I, uh, well kiddo, I _personally know_ how bad Eridium can treat someone. You know?” Rhys looks at him like a deer in the headlights and Jack snorts. “You’re still gettin’ used to it. And you’re still pumping this vault key up _for me,_ aren’t you?” He nods, eyes wide. “Then there is absolutely _nothing_ for you to worry about, cupcake. ‘Cause as long as _you’re_ doing your job, daddy’s not gonna hurt you.”

He cups Rhys’s chin and presses his mouth against his, teeth digging deep into his lips and he raises weak hands to grip at Jack as best he can. He lets his mouth fall open, lets Jack kiss and take and use him like he is now, and he cries openly when the kiss is broken off and he’s left breathless and empty. “See ya, sweetheart.” Jack purrs, gives him one more kiss to swollen lips, and Rhys collapses when the other’s bigger than life presence is gone.

 

And here he waits again for Jack to come back, spending his life here in a silence broken only by the hum of machinery and the beating of his heart; blood slowly becoming eridium, and his life twisting and warping beyond Rhys’s understanding.

 

 

 

Yet he isn't completely alone, because the vault key floats nearby, and he has so much time to spend with his new, parasitic friend.


End file.
